[FRIAM] Nautilus: Investing Is More Luck Than Talent

[Marcus Daniels]

Vladimyr writes:

"Really would parallel processing make even the least detectable difference or was the term thrown in to just scare the crap out of everyone..."

Local genotype search, as advocated especially by racists, supposes that fit solutions have already been found, and should receive only minor adjustment.   The belief that valuable phenotypes mostly arise from valuable genotypes is a possible explanation why conservatives and pro-lifers are overlapping groups -- they both believe in conserved stable `good' things like their genotypes.   Pro-choice folks, however, define life as living.   To these folks, exploring phenotype space means investing in physical growth and experience.   They have numbers on their side:  The size of the genome is orders of magnitude smaller than the number of cells in the body.   It is possible, though, that even these very complex machines, when forced into very similar environments, will evolve toward fixed points instead of many complementary degenerate solutions.  Liberals or neoliberals think that the fitness landscape is complex and has a structure that cannot be anticipated.   Conservatives think they know enough about the landscape, at least to the extent that they have found a niche that works and are not inclined to leave it. 

Marcus